With the rapid growth of wireless communications, the industry is developing and implementing a variety of transmission protocols in order to provide faster, more robust and more efficient communications. System performance can be improved by choosing the appropriate symbol rate, modulation and coding scheme and transmit power under the prevailing channel conditions. In order to select the best protocol, the transmitting station must have reliable current knowledge of the prevailing channel conditions at the receiver. Determining the prevailing channel conditions has proven to be computationally complex and susceptible to error. Accordingly, there is a need for a reliable, simple, efficient way to obtain current knowledge of the prevailing channel conditions in a communication link